Page 55 - Igor Ž. Žagar in Ana Mlekuž, ur. ▪︎ Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2019. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 37
P. 55
the challenge of positioning one’s research question in the state of the art ...
start developing their own positions towards the work of others and even-
tually become knowledge producers – while acquiring a (more or less) de-
personalized academic language.2
A frequent result of this paradox is that students’ texts are lacking a
clear position of the author. As Pohl (2007) has shown, early text may lack
any position, whereas later texts may reflect a discourse in “the literature”,
but the students’ position may come as an attached statement of person-
al opinion, which does not derive from the main text. Thus, students’ texts
(even more so the students) need to go through development until their
own views are not expressed as an unrelated appendix, but argued as a po-
sition based on and in relation to findings in the field.
Another debate which addresses the issue of the author’s position in
the text is that of voice or stance. Learning to write professionally – and ac-
ademic writing is a kind of professional writing in highly specialized fields
– entails the development of one’s voice, a term coined by Peter Elbow (1981)
and which in the widest sense refers to a personal dimension. While the
term was coined in the context of autobiographic writing, Elbow holds that
any kind of writing can have a voice (Elbow, 2000). Voice does not neces-
sarily occur in “good texts”, but refers to passages which resonate with the
reader. While Elbow’s conception is an individualistic one, others see it as
social in the sense that the voice perceived is also determined by reader and
context (Tardy, 2012). In this sense in academic writing voice can be under-
stood as one’s voice in an academic discourse Guinda & Hyland (2012) dis-
cuss that, while in writing voice is a central concept, it is not a unified one
and criticized it as ‘slippery’ by some. With regard to academic writing,
Nelson and Costelló (2012) introduce the notion of sameness in order to de-
note that in academic writing voice is not so much a matter of style, since it
is following strict conventions to the point of rather depersonalized. Yet, as
mentioned above, academic do identify with their work and over time au-
thors are becoming recognizable within their community, if only by their
topics, or choice of citations (Nelson & Castelló, 2012).
Other authors use the more narrow concept of stance for opinion, as-
cribing of meaning, or feelings apparent towards content of the text (Hy-
land, 2008), focusing on the intertextual features indicating reservations
(hedges like “she claims”) or agreement (boosters like “she has shown”) to-
2 For German academic language, Steinhoff (2007b) has interviewed researchers con-
cerning their use of three types of “I” (author-I, the researcher-I, and the narrator-I)
and could show that, while author – and researcher-I are widely accepted, it is the
narrator-I which is not accepted in most disciplines.
55
start developing their own positions towards the work of others and even-
tually become knowledge producers – while acquiring a (more or less) de-
personalized academic language.2
A frequent result of this paradox is that students’ texts are lacking a
clear position of the author. As Pohl (2007) has shown, early text may lack
any position, whereas later texts may reflect a discourse in “the literature”,
but the students’ position may come as an attached statement of person-
al opinion, which does not derive from the main text. Thus, students’ texts
(even more so the students) need to go through development until their
own views are not expressed as an unrelated appendix, but argued as a po-
sition based on and in relation to findings in the field.
Another debate which addresses the issue of the author’s position in
the text is that of voice or stance. Learning to write professionally – and ac-
ademic writing is a kind of professional writing in highly specialized fields
– entails the development of one’s voice, a term coined by Peter Elbow (1981)
and which in the widest sense refers to a personal dimension. While the
term was coined in the context of autobiographic writing, Elbow holds that
any kind of writing can have a voice (Elbow, 2000). Voice does not neces-
sarily occur in “good texts”, but refers to passages which resonate with the
reader. While Elbow’s conception is an individualistic one, others see it as
social in the sense that the voice perceived is also determined by reader and
context (Tardy, 2012). In this sense in academic writing voice can be under-
stood as one’s voice in an academic discourse Guinda & Hyland (2012) dis-
cuss that, while in writing voice is a central concept, it is not a unified one
and criticized it as ‘slippery’ by some. With regard to academic writing,
Nelson and Costelló (2012) introduce the notion of sameness in order to de-
note that in academic writing voice is not so much a matter of style, since it
is following strict conventions to the point of rather depersonalized. Yet, as
mentioned above, academic do identify with their work and over time au-
thors are becoming recognizable within their community, if only by their
topics, or choice of citations (Nelson & Castelló, 2012).
Other authors use the more narrow concept of stance for opinion, as-
cribing of meaning, or feelings apparent towards content of the text (Hy-
land, 2008), focusing on the intertextual features indicating reservations
(hedges like “she claims”) or agreement (boosters like “she has shown”) to-
2 For German academic language, Steinhoff (2007b) has interviewed researchers con-
cerning their use of three types of “I” (author-I, the researcher-I, and the narrator-I)
and could show that, while author – and researcher-I are widely accepted, it is the
narrator-I which is not accepted in most disciplines.
55
